


Off the Frequency of Breathing

by elliot_cant_write



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Every ship up there could have kind of stuck on the end of it, F/F, F/M, It gets there though, Not exactly happy, takes place post end of the movie/musical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 06:38:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10380693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliot_cant_write/pseuds/elliot_cant_write
Summary: They sat together at lunch and Martha and Heather talked and Veronica nodded along as if she was listening rather than staring at the place she first saw him. She always half thought she was going to see his ghost there and she wasn't sure if the sick feeling in her stomach when she didn't was relief or disappointment.





	

It wasn't as loud as she had thought it would be. 

Actually that was a lie. The sound of the bomb going off was loud, just not in the way it should have been. The sound should have shook the entire school to the core, bouncing down the hallways to the gym. Everyone should have felt the force of J.D.'s presence leaving the world. 

It was so so loud when Veronica woke up, the sound vibrating in her head and engulfing her entire being, as if to remind her that if she had only been stronger she could have stopped him. She felt like she could never get a breath in around it. The bomb was louder in her dreams than if had at right to be in real life. 

She found that noises scared her more than they had before. Every slammed locked door was her losing him all over again and every second after was her screaming at herself that she shouldn't have cared that he was gone because J.D. was not somebody she should have been with or somebody she should be missing. 

She went to classes in the physical sense. Veronica Sawyer, supposed genius and perfect student, was slowly becoming no more then the imprint of an idea of...nothing. She was nothing. College was no longer an option and she knew that, but that didn't take away the ice cold feeling in her chest when Ms. Flemings formally told her so. Or when the rejection letters came. 

Veronica tried to stay friends with Martha and Heather. Martha and Heather tried to stay friends with Veronica. They sat together at lunch and Martha and Heather talked and Veronica nodded along as if she was listening rather than staring at the place she first saw him. She always half thought she was going to see his ghost there and she wasn't sure if the sick feeling in her stomach when she didn't was relief or disappointment. 

The worst part was that she was the only one hurting. J.D. had something that vaguely resembled a funeral and she and his father were the only two people in attendance. He hadn't seemed upset his son was gone. Veronica had stepped in a spilt slushie outside with her nice white shoes. It seemed fitting. 

Nobody at school seemed to have noticed that he was gone. It wasn't particularly surprising that none of the teachers did, as Veronica wasn't sure he had actually attended a single class while enrolled, but J.D. had interacted with more than a few students. Although to be fair, the more she thought about it the more Veronica realised that most of the students he had spoken to were dead. Maybe if was better nobody remembered him. 

That didn't stop her from missing him. She missed him so fucking much it hurt and she felt like her heart was breaking all over again every time she passed that goddamn convenience store. If was suffocating. 

And Veronica knew he didn't deserve it. Jason Dean did not deserve anything. He hadn't descended any of it...

She struggled with that the most. Was it truly his fault? Was it his fault, what his mother had forced him to go through in her absence and what his father had forced him to go through in his presence? Was if Veronica's fault for not making him get the help he so obviously needed?

I wish we'd met before they convinced you life is war...

Heather said she was being ridiculous. J.D. was broken when she met him and no amount of help from a seventeen year old girl would have changed that. She did enough by stopping him before anyone could get hurt. 

Sometimes Veronica forgot none of them knew how many people had been hurt by J.D. Sometimes Veronica wondered how different things would have been of she hadn't let him take the bomb. Or if she hadn't pretended to kill herself. Because that's what had thrown him over the edge, wasn't it? Everything was her fault. 

She nearly told Martha one night, about Heather and Kurt and Ram and what exactly had went down below the gym. The guilt...it was always there, sitting in her lungs and trying to escape on every breath. It just got to be too much and she needed to be able to breathe regularly again. She settled for just bursting into tears. Martha did everything right, taking Veronica into her arms as she cried and saying that everything would be okay. Veronica felt so alone. 

Surprisingly, it was Heather Duke who helped her the most. In the bathroom, when Veronica should have been in physics and Heather should have been in government, Heather's reflection looked directly into Veronica's eyes and spoke hesitantly. "It's not your fault."

Veronica froze, freezing water running over her hands and heart stopping. "I...sorry?"

Heather let out an annoyed huff of air before turning off Veronica's sink. "Jason Dean. He wasn't your fault."

Veronica shook her head, feeling the guilt filling her lungs and absorbing every bit of oxygen she had. This was Heather Duke. The girl whose like she ruined. She didn't deserve to be comforted by her. 

"God, do you always have to act so...like this?" Heather faced her, dark eyes blazing. "Trust me. This is never going to get better until you accept that what happened to him was not your fault."

"You don't know what's in my head." Veronica choked out, regretting it immediately when she saw Heather's eyes flash. God, how could she have been so stupid? "Heather Chandler."

"Heather and I...she meant a lot to me," Heather said flatly. "I thought it was my fault when she died, that I should have known what she was going through, or whatever. I need you to believe me when I say that you can't stop hurting until you let those feelings go. Because I hate to say it, but this school isn't the same without somebody running around demanding more from the world than it should realistically be able to give them."

Veronica was still trying to process all of that when Heather pushed past her and out the bathroom door. Surprisingly, her chest felt lighter. 

Two weeks later she was sitting in the car of a different Heather, on what may or may not have been a date. The exact arrangements had been pretty vague but Veronica thought she was on board with either option. Being with Heather and Martha had become less of a daunting task and besides...Heather was...Heather was wonderful. 

"I'm so sorry about this," Heather was explaining, tossing her golden hair over her shoulder and out of her face. "My dad needed me to pick up some stuff and I figured if I was going to take his car I kind of had to get it for him."

"It's fine," Veronica said, unable to help a smile from spreading across her mouth. "Are you good or do you want me to come in too?"

Heather beamed. "I'm fine on my own; if will only be a minute. Then we'll be right off to the park!" She squeezed Veronica's hand before hopping out of the car. 

Veronica smiled at her hands. She felt...not perfect, but okay. She felt like maybe she could start attempting to deal with the world again. 

Because Veronica Sawyer was at a 7/11. Veronica Sawyer was not thinking about J.D. 

Veronica Sawyer could breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to Lady Gaga while listening to this because obviously it's fitting.  
> Anyway, I've never wrote anything for heathers before so might as well make it super cliche. I feel like I can't write any of these characters.  
> Thanks for reading/kudosing/commenting and have a lovely day!


End file.
